Car accidents account for a majority of whiplash injuries, but this can also happen with athletic injuries or falls. It is common to experience increased symptoms the following day due to muscle spasms as your body works to protect the injured area.

Although this is not an official medical diagnosis, it is a term commonly used for a stress injury where excessive mobile device use is believed to be the primary cause. Head forward posture adds additional load and strain to our neck muscles as seen below. Over time, this can lead to pain, rounded shoulders, reduced mobility, and pain. 

Over time, we all experience some degenerative changes throughout our body.  In our neck, these changes can be labeled as cervical degenerative disc disease (Cervical DDD), cervical stenosis or arthritis. This diagnoses can be made by diagnostic test (X-ray or MRI). People with this condition might start to experience pain down into the arm if the joint spaces become too small and start impinging on nerves.

A disc herniation happened when the disc material has broken through the exterior wall of the annulus fibrosis and is sitting on the neural canal. If it is sitting on the nerve, there will be constant pain as the disc is herniated and does not have the ability to bulge back in.

A bulging disc, the disc material begins to creep backwards and put pressure in the posterior aspect of the spine. The posterior aspect of the disc is highly sensitive and pressure on this nerve is painful. Progression of this leads to radiating pain.